Selected computer software applications remember files used in recent program runs. Word processors such as WordPerfect for Windows particularly remember a limited number of recently used files, whether merely opened or actually saved. The order and the content of remembered lists of objects, including recently used files, are immutably fixed and controlled in these application programs. In one application, the order of the lists is updated only when a most recently used file in the list ceases to be the first entry on the list. In one other application that supports limited lists having a fixed maximum size, the addition of a new file to the list beyond the list maximum causes the oldest file in the list to be deleted. Thus, room is made for a new file entry, and the order of items in the list is updated to ensure that the most recently used file is first on the list. Such rigid approaches are of limited utility.
In known integrated software development environments, such as Symantec's Think C environment and Apple's Programmer's Workshop, file names relating to a selected project are stored in one or more lists to enable a programmer to track the files required to "build" a desired project. These lists are only updated when the files belonging to a project are modified. Even this approach is severely limited.
It is difficult for programmers to track recently used files, programs, and associated software tools, because of lack of a central tracking mechanism for such objects. This technical problem of lacking a central mechanism is in need of a solution. Lacking such centralized tracking, programmers are forced laboriously to shuttle between applications to collect information. It is, for example, particularly desirable to maintain references to particular files used in a well-known UNIX "make" utility, to describe which programs are built with which components, and to describe when changes to a first file require that a second file be re-compiled or when a program needs to be re-linked. A tool for aiding programmers in centrally tracking which files have been used recently and by which software tools they have been used, would certainly be desired in the software and computer arts.